


The Stuff Of Which Dreams Are Made

by Rynfinity



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brotherly Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 10:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2266722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynfinity/pseuds/Rynfinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The next morning, over coffee and a few big white pills Stark assures him are amazing for hangovers, Thor wrestles his own conscience.  He is torn, for far from the first time where his brother is concerned, between what he wants and the <i>right thing</i>.</p><p>~</p><p>This little story follows the end of Thor 2 and Iron Man 3, a couple of years after Loki-as-Odin sends Thor back to London.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stuff Of Which Dreams Are Made

The sharply artificial buzz of his _starkphone_ (the Lady Darcy had called it the _batphone_ , or perhaps it is more correctly spoken _bat phone_ , once; it is, like so many, many others, a reference he does not yet understand) jars Thor out of his blank, mindless near-doze. He has been back in Midgard two standard Midgardian years now and, while he has reached a point where he dresses easily in mortal clothing and can usually blend into the surroundings as long as he refrains from speaking, there are still many things which do not come easily to him.

One of those is the annoying presence of the little phone.

He gropes for it blindly, eyes fixed once again on the television screen before him, and nearly succeeds in upsetting his flagon of _hard cider_. The mortals roll their eyes at what they term his _choice of poison_ , but the potently sweet drink always reminds him of home.

Thor closes his fingers around his phone, a compact slice of glass and metal, just as it buzzes again. He pulls it closer, until he can see who texted. _Man of Iron_ , it says. 

The man who put the “stark” in starkphone, then.

Yet again. Thor picks up his phone and scrolls back up to the top of the conversation.

 _call me, dude_ , the first line reads. That one had arrived back at midday here in the UK, as Thor was lazing about in what he has come to think of as _his flat_. It is a small but comfortable place, nearby to the one he’s been told belongs to the Lady Jane's mother. Midday means the wee hours of the morning for the Man of Iron, then. Or, more likely, the final hours of the previous night. _Tony Stark_ , Thor reminds himself. Stark had hung up the suit not long ago, proclaiming himself _out of the superhero business_. He can relate to that himself, he surely can. 

At the time, he still had opted not to answer.

The remaining messages had arrived throughout the course of the day, with increasing frequency. Stark is not a man used to going unheeded.

_look, i know tech is not your thing, but i have some information you really want to hear._  
seriously, thor. have i ever lied to you?  
okay don't answer that but i swear I’m not lying now. you need to call me.  
i mean it point break you'll hate yourself if you don't call. really. don’t be stupid. 

That text had been the one that had startled him awake. It's the one after it, though - _hey, you're the one here who can still fly. if you make me get in my jet and come over there, i *will* kill you. okay, i won't, but i'll make you very sorry. and don't think i can't, 'cos i can._ \- that finally starts to chip away at Thor's steadfastness.

~

It is not that Thor has lost interest in the mortals. Far from it; he takes his duties as their champion seriously and feels their struggles very nearly as keenly as his own. He thinks often and fondly of his Avengers shield brothers and sisters; they were good comrades and brave warriors, and he follows their activities in the press (and in the Lady Darcy's Book of Faces... or whatever it is called. The name is not that exactly, he’s certain, but she knows what he means and cheerfully helps him with it whenever he stops by her flat). But he does not stay in touch with his former comrades, not any more than necessary.

It is too painful. For him, it is still too soon.

"You will feel better in time," everyone assured him in the first months after his brother had- had died limp and bloodied in his arms. "You will come to remember the good times over the bad and will think of him fondly." But their own reactions to the news were at best equivocal - Loki _had_ taken many awful liberties in his short stay on Midgard, after all, at the cost of many mortal lives - and his own response to his loss too raw... in the end Thor simply could not find common ground. It was – it is – simply better to stay away.

Stark's appearance out of the technological ether, thus, is more than a bit unexpected and quite puzzling.

~

The phone buzzes again, vibrating unpleasantly against his fingertips. Thor jumps.

 _i'm warning you,_ the message reads, _i'm putting on pants…_

He smiles in spite of himself. After a long exhale and a resigned shrug, Thor delicately presses the tiny callback symbol and puts the device to his ear.

"Oh, thank _fuck_ ," Stark exclaims after one ring, a metallic click, and some clunking and banging. "I was seriously thinking you were going to make me come after you. Not that I wouldn't, I mean, because _friends_ and all that bullshit, but Jesus. The fucking phone is so much easier."

Thor smiles again and takes another quick sip of his cider. The feisty little mortal is always quite something. He has almost missed this.

"Thor! Are you th-?"

"Of course," Thor says, trying to remember to keep his booming voice modulated. "I have been busy," he lies. "What is it you need, Tony?"

"Nuh-uh, thunder-boy," Stark says in his ear. The mortal sounds intoxicated which is, as he (doesn’t quite understand, but) has heard said, _par for the course_. "This is something _you_ need. Come here. To my tower, I mean. Now."

Thor swallows, hard. He has not gone back to New York since that fateful day, the day he'd returned Loki to Asgard. He cares as deeply for the good people there as he does for any, perhaps more given their misfortune at the hands of one of his own, but the place holds far too many memories. He is not certain he can handle it, and had no interest in putting his own sanity to the test.

"No,” Thor tells the mortal. “You will tell me what it is you wish to share, first," he demands. It seems a reasonable request; he is no longer impulsive. Not like the mortal, not like his own brother. He has learned the value of careful consideration and restraint. Learned it the hard way, for that matter.

"Can't. Can’t say it. Not over the airwaves. Even my shit isn't _that_ secure." Stark belches. "Oops. Listen, grab that hammer of yours and get a move on. I promise you it's worth it." After a long pause, during which Thor thinks a great deal but says nothing, Stark clears his throat. "I've found something of deep importance to you. Now get your ass over here. Pronto."

"I have had an unexpected engagement come up," Thor nicely informs the Lady Jane, pleased for once to be speaking with her Mail of Voices. "You four be sure to have a lovely evening, and I will speak with you soon." He had been intending to meet them all for dinner - Ian is in town, helping Erik Selvig (who, very decently, has said nothing unkind about Loki's death since that first awkward expression of delight… but Thor still finds it a bit difficult to spend much time together) give a presentation on paranormal phenomena at a small local university, and Ladies Darcy and Jane had been planning a celebratory meal - but it seems he won't be doing so after all.

It's just as well. When they gather, the conversation invariably turns to portals, and talk of that nature just as invariably leaves him fighting not to cry.

~

Thor touches down with a bone-jarring thud at the far end of the sweeping balcony; he’s careful to keep as much space between himself and that spot, the one where he had once wrestled his brother, as possible. "Tony," he booms out, not smiling as the mortal jumps and then flaps about, alcohol and glass everywhere. "Let me in."

 _Inside is little better_ , he thinks as he sets Mjolnir down just inside the threshold. _There is the floor where-... there is the bar that-..._ With difficulty Thor makes himself focus on the beaming, disheveled mortal who rushes straight through the broken glass to catch him in a wildly enthusiastic hug.

"He's _here_ , Thor," Stark blurts out – breath hot against his chest - not even bothering with the customary Midgardian pleasantries. Thor's stomach, already not at its best in these troubling surroundings, does an unpleasant little flip.

"Who?" He resists the urge to pry loose the clinging mortal. "Who is here? _Where_ is here?"

His self-restraint ends up not mattering; Stark pushes Thor to arm's length and stares up at him intently. "Your brother," the mortal says, like Thor’s question is the most idiotic question in all the nine realms. "Loki." His eyebrows pinch together. "You okay, big guy? You look like you ought to be sitting down."

It's good advice and Thor takes it, dropping without thinking onto a low couch and wincing as it creaks loudly under his weight. "No," he says flatly. "It cannot be." It simply cannot; with his own hands he'd felt Loki's blood pour out, with his own eyes he'd seen his brother die.

"So you'd think," Stark agreed, nodding as he perches on the closest ottoman. "I remember everything you told me, back when you first returned to earth. But you're wrong. He's here. I'm absolutely certain. Technology, baby," he explains proudly as he reaches into the empty air between them and - with a gesture eerily reminiscent of Loki's own seidr - pulls a field of images out of nothing. "See?"

Thor starts violently. He leans forward, rubs his eyes, then rubs them again. Harder.

It simply cannot be, and yet it is.

The television-esque footage, of course exceedingly high in quality, dates – based on the numbers showing in what Thor thinks he remembers is called the footer, despite its having nothing whatsoever to do with feet - from yesterday. The scene is grey but not dim; a lightly rainy day, then, the sort not uncommon in New York. Or London. And there - _right there_ , plain as day even after he scrubs at his eyes viciously a third time - sits his brother.

Heart in his throat and breath coming in tight hitches. Thor watches spellbound as Loki - very much alive, clad in casual Midgardian clothing, his hair short once again; just brushing his collar, swept neatly back from his angular face - sips idly at a cup of something as he reads a folded newspaper. A waitress hurries into the frame and ducks under the red umbrella sheltering his small sidewalk table from the rain. She offers a refill - it must be coffee he's drinking, then - and Loki smiles up at her.

It's an untroubled, open smile, the likes of which has not graced his brother's face since they were but the smallest of boys.

Thor lets out a pained grunt.

"See?" Stark beams at him through the blank grey screen that marks the end of the footage. "Ta-da. Never let it be said the great Tony Stark doesn't deliver."

“Uh-.” Thor is all but speechless. He clears his throat roughly and just manages "where?"

"East Village," Stark tells Thor. "Not far. Nice little French cafe. Been there a few times. Myself, I mean," he clarifies, one hand up, as Thor gasps. "First time I've seen your brother." An impossibly wide grin splits his face from ear to ear. "But I did use all the time you spent rudely ignoring me earlier to do some sick fucking research."

~

Tony Stark is no underachiever. Thor knows this from the time they spent together; the time they fought together. The mortal is small in stature and sarcastic in speech, but set him to a job and he will win or die trying.

Even so, nothing prepares Thor for the sheer scope of the dossier Stark has assembled. They pore over it together for hours.

Loki – going, it seems, by _Luke Lawson_ these days – has been in New York nearly as long as Thor has been in London. There is no real explanation; he appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and hand-waves his past away when pressured. He keeps a low profile for the most part, though clearly not low enough to slip past Stark’s technology’s notice. Loki lives in an apartment in what Stark describes as a “modest older building” – even after the time he’s spent here in this odd little realm, Thor still struggles mightily with calling anything newer than Stonehenge _old_ \- and is gainfully employed making- paper of walls?

Stark has to explain that bit several times. It seems Loki lays colors down on some sort of special paper; the mortals then use it to cover the interior wall of their dwellings. Like tapestry, but stuck on somehow. The kind Loki makes is very sought-after; Stark brings up an article out of a high-end design resource which describes _the work of Mr. Lawson_ as _fabulous, otherworldly_ and _simply magical_.

The designs themselves are indeed quite pleasing to the eye. As he leans in to study them more closely, Thor cannot help but recognize Frigga’s gardens. Her loom. Her fishpond. Her dresses. The stylized braid of her long, deep-golden hair.

Thor swallows, with considerable difficulty. “Has- has he caused trouble,” he stammers, hoping against hope it is not so. “For the mor- for the _people_ ,” he corrects himself, belatedly remembering his manners. “In his time here?”

Stark shakes his head. “There isn’t any sign of trouble and believe me I’ve looked. Sorry,” he adds, face crumpling a little. “Don’t mean to be an asshole, my mouth just does shit like that sometimes.”

“No, it is fine,” Thor says, waving a hand dismissively. “I understand. He wronged your people. He wronged _you_. It is only natural for you to want to protect- what,” he asks, when he realizes the mortal is peering at him strangely.

“Believe it or not,” Stark says, “I’m glad I didn’t find anything. Glad for you. And glad for Reindeer Games here.” He shrugs. “What can I say? I have a soft spot for the ones with bad judgment and daddy issues.”

~

Thor spends what’s left of the night sprawled restless and tossing on the big bed in one of Stark’s many well-equipped guestrooms.

~

The next morning, over coffee and a few big white pills Stark assures him are amazing for hangovers, Thor wrestles his own conscience. He is torn, for far from the first time where his brother is concerned, between what he wants and the _right thing_.

He wants – very much so, to the point of pain – to take Stark up on the generous offer to go visit Loki in his place of papermaking. The right thing to do, though, is undoubtedly to leave his brother in peace. Loki has a life here now, a good life, and Thor would not take that from his brother for all the universe. He thinks of Loki’s happy smile. Of the beautiful papers for mortal walls, lovingly adorned with scenes of Asgard. Of their mother.

“Thank you, Tony Stark,” he tells the mortal as he finishes his coffee and makes to take his leave. “For finding my brother, and for giving me the mighty gift of seeing him well. And for leaving him be.” He sighs. A lone tear threatens to overrun its proper place and streak into view; Thor averts his face to wipe it away in secret. “I simply cannot begin to repay you. But I live not in hiding; I am not hard to find. When Loki is ready to see me, I have no doubt that he will.”

Stark shakes his head, mouth pulling up at one side in a rueful, knowing smile. “You gods are strange,” he says. “And you’re welcome. Stop by anytime. Hey, and don’t forget your hammer.”

~

Thor stops briefly outside the paper factory after all, but only to admire his brother’s work in the display windows across the building’s front. He does not allow himself to stay long, lest his shaky resolve crumble away entirely.

~

“Where’d you go last night,” the Lady Darcy asks him, smirking, when she and Ian stop by the following evening. “Hot date?” She winks.

He looks over at Mjolnir, perched neatly by the door. “Nothing like that. I was simply speaking with a friend.”

**Author's Note:**

> This now has a kind-of-sequel, [Some Dreams Bring the Future](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3226766), in case you would like more. If you like where it ended and just want to stop here, that's fine too.


End file.
